POESIE BLEU: A Reading by Professor Pierre Taminaux

Making Rhymes for Young Ghouls: A Conversation with Mi'gmaq Filmmaker Jeff Barnaby & actress Devery Jacobs

November 2014

The Humanities in the 21st Century Liberal Arts

October 2014Diana Sorensen is Dean of the Arts and Humanities, and James F. Rothemberg Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures and of Comparative Literatures. She is a specialist in nineteenth and twentieth-century Latin American literature, and in comparative literature.

Written, Conceived, and Directed by Valère Novarina. As part of a festival celebrating acclaimed avant-garde French playwright Valère Novarina, one of the most important visionaries in contemporary French theater, the Atlanta-based francophone theater company Le Théâtre du Rêve and Valery Warnotte give two performances at the Davis Center. They will perform the new work L’Acteur Sacrifiant (The Sacrificing Actor), which adapts the dramatic and theoretical writings of Novarina to create a montage that provokes and puts into question the audience’s very experience of theater. Novarina himself directs Le Monologue d’Adramélech, a monologue performed by Jean-Yves Michaux.

Both performances, subtitled in English, will be followed by Q & A sessions with Novarina.

"On the altar of the stage, first sacrificed is the character; second, the actor; and third, you, the spectator." -- Valère Novarina

Novarina will also attend the opening for an exhibition of his artwork at Letelier Theater in Georgetown, followed by a free screening of, "What Cannot Be Spoken Is What Must Be Said", a documentary (in French) based Valère Novarina’s approach to performance, language, and the visual arts.

When: April 14th, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Letelier Theater/ Georgetown Court, Inc. is located at 3251 Prospect St., NW in Washington, D.C.
Presented by The Alliance Française de Washington, The Délégation Générale de l’Alliance Française aux Etats-Unis, Georgetown University Department of French and Georgetown University Theater and Performance Studies Program.

Playwright and Social Activist: Elsa Solal

March 2009

Straight from Paris!
Elsa Solal: Playwright and Social Activist
Women and the Nature of Writing Causerie in French with English Translation Provided

Madame Elsa Solal, a professor at the world-known Institut d'Etudes Théâtrales of the Sorbonne Nouvelle (Université de Paris 111), has written many dramatic works, on a variety of themes, but especially on issues of great social import such as domestic violence across the board within French society and the alienation of women from immigrant populations (especially Muslim). Moreover, in recent years, she has worked collaboratively with these latter in order to facilitate the "insertion sociale" of marginalized groups by giving a "voix aux sans-voix", a voice to the formerly voiceless. She has also written on Olympe de Gouges, a feminist heroine of the French Revolution.

A Lecture by Award-Winning Mauritian Author Ananda Devi

Sponsored by the French Department and the E. Joseph McCarthy Endowment
Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 4:00 PM
McShain Lounge, McCarthy Hall

Ananda Devi grew up in a multilingual, translational universe of Creole and Bhojpuri, English and French, Hindi and Mandarin. Does growing up multilingual better prepare one for a multicultural world? Or does it make one a jack-of-all-languages but master of none? How does one find a common cultural identity and understanding? These are the kinds of questions that Ananda Devi will elaborate on in her discussion of her own experience as a writer and citizen of the world.

The lecture will be in French, but the author will be willing to answer questions in English.

This tour is organized by the Délégation générale de l’Alliance Française aux États-Unis with the support of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie

A theater of bodies in movement. Rituals. A performance with drums, with songs, with the rhythms of what’s alive. Mystery. Magic. Beyond the real. Vodou. Spawned from life. Hope ... yes ... for this end of the island, this Haiti.

Baka Roklo (Guy Régis Jr.) : Author, videographer and stage artist. For the past ten years, he has been the dominant force inspiring Haitian theater. Through the exploratory work of NOUS, his company, he has launched a movement whose dynamism and influence has become an incontrovertible reference throughout the Caribbean.

Our sponsors : The French Department of Georgetown University wishes to gratefully acknowledge the welcome support of the following campus entities :

The Center for Latin-American Studies of the School of Foreign Service

The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs

The Americas Initiative of Georgetown College

The African Studies Program of the School of Foreign Service

The African-American Studies Program

The Center for Multicultural Equity and Access (CMEA)

The Minority Mentoring Program

The McCarthy Fund of the Department of French

The Department of Theology

The Anthropology Unit of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology

We also wish to especially recognize, along with Dr. Deborah Lesko Baker, Chairman of French and sterling supporter of cultural enrichment activity in French and Francophone Studies, Ms. Rosemary Kilkenny, VP for Institutional Diversity and Equity, for her generous enlightenment and early support, and Mr. George Corinaldi, a private donor, valued friend and former leader within the US Department of State.

20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies Colloquium

March 2008

Limits/Limites: The 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies Colloquium was held March 6-8, 2008 at Georgetown University.

Engaging in Humanitarianism in the Real and Virtual Worlds

April 2007

A Lecture in English by Alain Dubos, Former Vice-President of Doctors Without Borders (1999 Nobel Peace Prize)
Tuesday, April 10, 2008 3:15 p.m.
Espace McCarthy, ICC-425

How should we view emergency medical engagement in the early part of our new century?
More than 30 years after it was established, Doctors Without Borders continues its work in over 40 countries on five continents. From the secrecy of former times to the worldwide aura bestowed upon it by the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, the organization has always had to adapt its original philosophy, “to go where others don’t go,” to the constraints of a world in upheaval after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Vice-President of Doctors Without Borders for a half-dozen years, Alain Dubos has completed numerous missions, often clandestine, in many countries at war, from Afghanistan to Lebanon and Kurdistan, to name a few. From these experiences, Dubos has produced a series of novels and non-fiction works and has since continued to work for population groups in danger. Thirty years after his early pioneering travels, his most recent mission was to Cambodia in March 2006.

Les Musiciens de Jazz Américain à Paris

February 2007

The Department of French, with the Alliance Française of Washington, proudly presents a lecture in French Philippe Gumplowicz, Distinguished Lecturer in Musicology at the University of Bourgogne, Seminar Director at the Sorbonne & the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, and Musical Producter with France Culture and France Musique.

Sigui Siguila Sigulya

A World Premiere

Poster design by Pascal Mpeck

S'absenter pour être enfin là (Vanishing, to be there at last), a new Ivorian play by GU Professor of French and African Studies, Amadou Koné, directed in the Gonda Theatre of Georgetown's new Davis Performing Arts Center by GU Professor of French and Theater Studies, Roger Bensky.

Amadou Koné’s major new work is a cautionary tale about a fictitious West African nation whose long-reigning leader has died and which we now find stuck in the impasse between mourning the past and bringing on the future. Why? Because a secret something called siguila, which we understand to be a sacred representation of the Origins according to several peoples of the region, and which is essential to the ritual bestowing of power on the new leader, has been inexplicably misplaced. Unless siguila, which we never actually see, and which even the official guardians of the traditions seem no longer able to fathom and describe correctly, can be found and restored to its rightful place in the rituals of transition, the society of this fictitious land will forever remain in socio-political limbo.

Performed in French with English Subtitles
November 30, December 1, and December 2 - 8:00pm
December 2 and December 3 - 2:00pm
Gonda Theatre Davis Performing Arts Center

Lecture by Professor Laurence Tardy, Director of Studies at the Ecole du Louvre